Revenge Body 2017: A follow up for the girls who dared to ask if I stuffed my bra in the sixth grade, the middle school boy who called me the fat cheerleader, the cheer coach who gave me a tshirt that could have fit a small elephant and told me it fit me, the evil stepmother who said I looked like an ugly duckling on my prom night, and every man who treated me like I was special in private but refused to hold my hand in public

Alternate title: I wish my life were not a Demi Lovato song, but it is (on the bright side: thank goodness it is not a new Taylor Swift song, am I right?)

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Depression has looked good on me.  I’m serious.  I’m 27 and I’ve never looked better-- not at 18 or 22 or 25.  I look good.  People have noticed, and I have, too.  

A few months ago when I was borderline but not quite depressed (before I became actually depressed) and trying to proactively kick depression’s butt, I kept a daily journal of things that still made me happy (or, at the very least, I was still able to appreciate).  Many times this journaling occurred at my favorite coffee shop and many times my pal, Jeff, was there.  

It usually went something like this:

*Jessica opens cute little happiness journal*

*Jessica, reading aloud as she writes*: “#1 I look good today.”

*Jeff: lolz and alternates between calling Jessica narcissistic and sincerely saying he appreciates her confidence, the two very responses all best friends should alternate between*

*End of reading journal entries aloud*

Trying to intentionally acknowledge happiness when I feel like it is in short supply and choosing to appreciate and love the body God gave me are not exactly innate thought-behavior combos for me, but they are behaviors I am trying to grow into.  It has been difficult.  Growing is difficult.

I was talking to my friend, Meredith, on facetime the other day about how we are each God’s investments and he expects us to grow (ala the parable of the talents) and thus we sometimes have to make ourselves do things like go to school and eat salads and such, even though we are pretty cool as is.  

This year I have been trying to grow.  I’ve been more vulnerable, taken more relational risks, read a lot, listened a lot, spent hours and hours talking to mentors and therapists, and have tried to practice previously novel concepts like self-discipline.  This year I’ve put in a lot of hard work to be a better me, because I desperately want to be something better than “fine” and a lot more like “well.”  

This spring I felt like my life lacked evidence of self-discipline and I wanted to grow those muscles, so I decided to try making myself do things I didn’t want to do and eating well and exercising seemed like a good place to start.  I did a month of hot yoga classes (at least 5 classes per week) and two months of the Whole 30 eating plan, and I lost 20 pounds in the first two weeks and it stayed off.  Then, the best way I know how to explain it is all the growing I did caused a lot of growing pains; I was pretty depressed for awhile this year and lost another 10 pounds, and it has stayed off, too.   

The last time I weighed this much was when I was in middle school.  It was the year after girls asked me if I stuffed my bra during truth or dare, and the year before a boy in one of the classes I aided for called me “the fat cheerleader.” I specifically remember standing in my 7th grade gym class, dreading stepping on the scale in front of anyone and definitely, maybe (but not absolutely) crying afterward because I thought I weighed “SO MUCH.”  Short, curvy but muscular 7th grade me just didn’t even know what was coming.

"The Fat Cheerleader"

Unlike 7th grade me, high school me was actually chubby.  I did hot yoga and took kickboxing classes like a boss, I did cheerleading (which, might I add, was no joke) and had practices most nights year round, and yet I weighed literally 50 pounds more than I do now.  In some ways, it was a mercy, because it meant I was never the flyer (aka the girl they picked up for pyramids) in cheerleading and therefore can live to tell this tale-- but in every other single way, it pretty much sucked.

In high school my Dad married a lady who was pretty disturbed.  She had disordered eating herself, and quickly became obsessed with my weight, too.  She frequently compared our weights and tried to incentivize me dropping down to 125 pounds, specifically, which was how much she claimed to weigh.  It took me until I was 23ish (several years after she and my Dad had divorced) and hit that weight for the first time to realize there was no way she had actually weighed what she said she did, and it made me sad for her-- sad she had felt the need to lie, the need to starve herself to weigh 125 pounds and the need to compare herself to teenagers.  My empathetic heart still finds it all very sad.

I will probably never forget how on my prom night, when I was dressed up and with my hair and makeup done for the first time and feeling like a 10,  she said, “you remind me of the ugly duckling.”  What she meant was: “you look like a lovely swan.”  But that is not what she said.  What she said was, “you remind me of the ugly duckling.”  It was not surprising, but it was still really hurtful (which I let her know).  

 "The Ugly Duckling"

I did not stay chubby forever, or really for very much longer after the whole ugly duckling incident.     

I dropped about 30 pounds my first year of college, even though I ate unhealthy foods all the time (and a lot of it) and did not work out.  My secret?  I was probably anxious and depressed freshman year, I stopped being 16, and my thyroid levels magically leveled out.  

When I was 22 I got a boyfriend for the first time and gradually lost 10 more pounds.

Then three years later he broke up with me and I lost 5 pounds in the few months that followed, but then gradually gained 25 over the next 2 years.

Then my recent hot yoga/Whole 30 stint, down 20 pounds.

Then growing pains (aka depression), down 10 pounds.

Now ‘revenge body.’  Heartbreak accidentally looks good on me.   

It’s been a journey.  

Even after I first began losing a lot of weight and started to look and feel more “swan-like,” I kept feeling like an ugly duckling.  I have learned it is entirely possible to feel like both at the same time.  

As my therapist frequently tells me, I am incredibly introspective and brutally honest with myself.  So here is the real truth: even when I started to feel like I looked better and presented all kinds of confidence, below the surface I still secretly felt like an ugly duckling-- which showed in my relationships.  Starting in college, this whole ugly duckling complex created what I refer to as “fugly friend syndrome."  

For those who do not speak angsty teenager, this is what I mean by "fugly friend syndrome:" Pretty much every time I liked a guy he would be super super nice to me when we hung out by ourselves, text me all the time, and act like I was something special, but then not treat me the same in public as in private.  There would also be behaviors not within the scope of “normal things a heterosexual male who just wants to be your friend” would do, such as playing with my hair (I know, scandalous)-- intimate, but not sexual behaviors.  Lots of guys did this kind of stuff, and every time it happened I assumed it was because they liked my personality but saw me as a “fugly best friend;” they wanted to share all of their secrets with me and were nice and even mildly affectionate towards me, but they did not think I was cute enough to be affectionate towards in public.  I must have allowed those behaviors because, at some level of consciousness, I felt like I did not deserve and therefore should not have expected better.

Since college I have only really cared about two men, and even though they were each really affectionate towards me in private and told me I was beautiful and such, neither of them treated me the same publicly as they did privately.   Though I weighed the magic number, 125 pounds, and acted super confident (which they would likely both attest to), and even though they each said it was because they despised even mild PDA, I still think I always felt it really had more to do with them being embarrassed of me because I was not cute enough.  It is entirely possible there was some truth to my hunches about them feeling that way (in addition to genuinely hating PDA), and it is also entirely possible it was something I completely made up as a projection of existing insecurities.  It is also entirely possible the truth was somewhere in the middle of both possibilities.  Regardless, through recent introspection I can acknowledge I did not deserve to feel that way and admit in each of those relationships I really believed I did deserve it.

Now revenge body.

FYI, doing the bow pose pretty much makes you feel like a warrior princess

On one hand, in my current state of ‘revenge body’ I could just assume my body issues are solved since I can acknowledge I look good.  Unfortunately (at least it feels unfortunate) I still care about growing, which as I have said before sometimes means doing hard work you do not feel like doing.  Lately I have been taking some time to think back on all of the former versions of me and decide I love them enough-- as chubby or thin as they were--  to make sure future me gets treated better, both by myself and others.  I am exploring the hurtful conscious and unconscious thoughts I had about myself and the hurtful words and actions of others, and you know what, it sucks.  It really sucks.  But because I am working through it now, it won’t keep sucking forever.  

God made this little body to grow, and I am growing (and have never looked better).  My hope is sooner or later I will have both revenge body and the biggest smile I have ever had, and will be able to write “#1 I look good and feel good” in my happy journal.  Again, not at all how I feel now, but I am working on it, so it is coming.  Look out world (and innocent Chocolate Holler patrons): when I get to that level I am going to stand on a chair and tell everyone.  

It’s coming.

I’ll keep ya posted.